The Foundation Of Awori People.

HOW THE AWORIS FOUNDED LAGOS

What is the origin of Lagos island or ‘Eko’ as we Yorubas know it? Who were the original natives and inhabitants of the island? As we asked these questions, this was the reply of Chief Olateju, a Lagos white-cap chief and custodian of traditional history of Eko at the Iga Idunganran, the traditional palace of the Oba of Lagos.

‘Lagos was originally inhabited by the Aworis, a people who have continued to live here. I am one of these Aworis,’ Chief Olateju told us very firmly and assuredly. And as he continued his lesson in the history of Lagos to our great satisfaction, it became clear to us that not only was Chief Olateju very knowledgeable about this topic, he was also very proud indeed of his Awori roots.

‘According to our tribal legends, we are the descendants of Olofin, a prince from Ile-Ife, who was one of the legendary grandsons of Oduduwa.  Like many of those early Ife princes, he left Ile-Ife in search of fame and glory, trying to find a new land in which to establish his own dynasty. He sought his domain in the desolate southern reaches of the Ogun River. For centuries after his death, his descendants continued to travel southwards away from the Yoruba heartland. By a tradition that honored their ancient progenitor, Olofin the prince of Ife, they continued to call their leader in each generation, the Olofin. 

‘In their southward migration, they stayed close to the river Ogun, deriving their sustenance, beliefs and mythology from that old and sacred water. Even in those early days, they had begun to establish their pre-eminence and reputation as great fishermen.  Sometime in the fifteenth century, still following the Ogun river, a group of these travelers, who by this time were calling themselves Aworis, had reached Isheri. From there, some of them moved into the marshy lands and coastal waters around the present Lagos Island. They lived off the lagoon and creeks and the surrounding dry land, feeding on the fish, crabs and turtles that they caught in the lagoon. They also ate the corn, yams, tomatoes and pepper that they grew in the marshy lands that lay sandwiched between the creeks and the lagoon. 

In this coastal area, they came in contact with other bands of itinerant riverine people who came seasonally to the same area in search of the fish, alligators and other water creatures that they hunted for food. These people were the Ilajes and Ijaws. The peaceful Aworis intermarried with these other riverine people, and shared with them the resources and commodities of their fishing communities. From the intrepid Ijaws, the Aworis learnt many useful water skills. And from this peaceful mingling of cultures, the language and dialect of the Awori people began to diverge from the classic Yoruba of their ancestors who came from Ile-Ife. Over the next three centuries, generations of these Aworis settled on the two adjoining coastal islands of Otto and Iddo. 

“Their most notable leader at this time was Olofin Ogunfuminire, who lived during in the sixteenth century. It was during his lifetime that some of our Awori people crossed the lagoon in their canoes to colonize, as its first human inhabitants, the water-encompassed land that would later be called the island of Lagos.  

“It was in this way that our Awori forefathers settled on this island. They established pepper farms and fishing communities. They thrived and their numbers increased. But still, they were not a war-faring people.  For throughout their long history up till that time, they had never faced a major threat of war or domination by another group. Our people had always believed in peaceful co-existence with their neighbors and those who shared the land and the water with them. 

“But this soon changed. For in the seventeenth century, the Awori settlement on the island was invaded and conquered by an army sent by the oba of the expansion-minded and warlike Benin Empire. The island became a colony and war-camp of the king of Bini. Many of our young men were conscripted into the Bini army. They helped the Binis launch warlike sorties against other tribes along the seaboard to the east of the island, including the empire of Dahomey. This is how our ancestors came in contact for the first time with the Fom people of Dahomey. And this is how the legend of the famous female warriors of Dahomey came to be recorded in our annals alongside the history of our own people. 

‘The word “Amazon” of course was not used in those days and was not even a native word used by any African tribe. This fanciful name was given to the female fighters of Dahomey by European writers and soldiers of the late eighteenth century who romanticized the sex-defying warrior ethos of the Dahomey women fighters and identified them in their imagination with the ancient Amazons of Greek mythology. 

‘These Dahomey female warriors were no myths however. They were real enough, as the bitter defeats they inflicted on our own male Awori warriors bore testimony. It is a fact of history, not mythology, that these elite female warriors of Dahomey earned their well-placed reputation for fierceness and bravery on the battlefield. Our warrior forefathers mentioned their exploits in many of their oral records. We are told that the name by which these female warriors called themselves was ahosi, which in their Fom language meant ‘wives of the king.’ Most of those female fighters were virgins. While they were expected to maintain a strict and chaste military discipline and keep away from men, they were all legally wives of the king of Dahomey. Their male colleagues in the regular Dahomey army referred to them as ‘our mothers’ or ‘ne nonmiton’ in the Fom language. 

‘Later, my own research revealed that this Dahomean female fighting force started in the seventeenth century as a corps of dedicated women elephant hunters. In the next century, they were armed with muskets and were formed into a regiment of special bodyguards dedicated to the service and protection of the king of Dahomey himself.’

Chief Olateju continued, ‘According to a Bini legend which was not always accepted by the Fom people, the land of Dahomey was conquered by a prince of Bini named Isidahome, who then gave his Bini name to the capital city of the Fom people which they now called Abomey. It was at this time too, according to another legend of Bini origin, that our own island came to be known as the oko, meaning a farm or outpost of the king of Bini. This name, oko, was later corrupted by us Aworis to Eko. Before long, Eko became the accepted native name of the island.’ 

Chief Olateju concluded his short summary of the history of Lagos with a glint of patriotic fervor in his eyes. ‘And even though the Oba of Bini may have sent a war-captain of Bini to rule over Eko and a Bini chief was the first Eletu Odibo of Lagos, we know that the current royal families in Lagos are all of Awori origin and are not of Bini extraction. We Aworis are the original omo Eko, children of Lagos.’ 

‘We however can agree that the tradition of the white caps worn by the high chiefs of Lagos is of Bini origin,’ he conceded. 

‘The first actual oba of Lagos was Ashipa. He reigned from roughly 1682 to 1716. He was an olori-ogun or war-chief sent by the Bini king to establish his suzerainty over the island. The royal emblems of authority given to him by the Bini emperor were a sword and a drum. The Binis say that his name was derived from the Bini ‘Aisika hienbore,’ which is where the Awori corruption of Ashipa came from. Ashipa was the grandson of an Oba of Bini. As the new leader of the island, he was assisted by another chieftain from Bini, Eletu Odibo, whose descendants, bearing his title, have acted as prime ministers to successive obas of Lagos. The Eletu Odibo’s unique duty, as kingmaker, is to crown every new oba. In this role, he has remained the most important member of the akarigbere class of ‘white cap’ chiefs throughout the history of Lagos.’ 

“How about the name Lagos? Where did it come from?” we asked. Again, the chief obliged. And this is what he said. ‘This English name, Lagos, is a corruption of the Portuguese lago, which, translated to English, means lagoon.’ 

He cleared his throat, excused himself, and continued.  ‘According to our local history, the European discovery of Lagos island began with a Portuguese sailor and explorer named Rui de Sequeira, who first visited our island in 1472. It was this Sequeira who named the calm lagoon waters around the island Lago de Curamo. These so-named Curamo waters are still located east of the present-day Victoria Island, which was named after Queen Victoria of Great Britain, and around the Lekki peninsula, which was originally an Ijebu coastal village, not an Awori settlement as I must admit. 

‘Right now,’ the old chief concluded, ‘ as you can see, it is difficult to identify with any clarity the old creeks and waterways on which those brave Awori, Ijebu and Ilaje fishermen plied their trade between the sea, the islands and the lagoon. Over the last few decades, most of these creeks as well as much of the lagoon between Lagos, Obalende and Ikoyi have being erased and filled up with sand for modern urban development. That is the legacy, unfortunate in my mind, of the urban development of Lagos island in our new age’

Illustration: "Eyo" ink on paper, Dipo Alao

Excerpt from A NEW AGE, Itan – legends of the golden age, Book 3 by Oladele Olusanya. A New Age and the other books of the Itan trilogy are available from Amazon and other online booksellers worldwide

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=oladele+olusanya&ref=nb_sb_noss_2